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Shawn Vuong
Sean Johnston
English 283
7 October 2005
Missing Connections
Details and a reader’s association to those details are what make an author’s writing truly
vivid. “Writers are frequently advised: show, don’t tell” (Burroway 7). As Burroway explains in
the first chapter of her text, writing with concrete detail and imagery is crucial to address the
senses, which is important in creating great literature. Usually an author will connect their
imagery to their details and other parts of their creative piece to appeal to a reader. Although
many writers do compose great literature through strong connections in imagery and concrete
detail, the lack of connection to Denis Johnson’s imagery in “Car Crash While Hitchhiking” is
what makes the story appeal to a reader’s senses. First, we will look into how Johnson uses
specific details, yet does not tie thoughts together well in his fictional essay. Next, some
examples of his writing will be analyzed for the literal and connotative meanings and their
significance to the argument. Finally, we will analyze how this author uses imagery overall to
appeal to the reader.
Right from the beginning of the story, Johnson uses vivid details. “And a family from
Marshalltown who head-onned and killed forever a man driving west of Bethany, Missouri…”
Also, from the start, the author puts together random details, which don’t really seem to connect
with the narrator. “A salesman who shared his liquor and steered while sleeping…A Cherokee
filled with bourbon…A VW no more than a bubble of hashish fumes, captained by a college
student…” This premise continues throughout the story to a very strange, yet detailed ending
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about a nurse injecting him with drugs and then suddenly beautiful scenery. The author does this
to ‘show’ the reader that the character in his story is crazy, schizophrenic, or both.
Johnson uses his lack of connection between details to help reader’s associate with the
feelings of the narrator. “I was standing out here in the night, with the baby, for some reason, in
my arms.” The narrator specifically knows he had the baby at the time, but does not remember
grabbing the baby or why he might have grabbed the baby as we can tell from the literal
meaning. This directly relates into the more connotative feelings in this part of the story. The
narrator has stated that he has been extremely drunk, every driver “had given me drugs,” and he
probably was a little shaken up from the accident. “A beautiful nurse was touching my skin.
‘These are vitamins,’ she said, and drove the needle in.” At the end of the story the narrator is in
some kind of health institution, supposedly a detoxification center. After the nurse injects the
‘vitamins’ the author starts to describe a stunning scene in which the narrator is introduced to. A
reader can infer that this character is probably hallucinating at this point, or maybe has been
throughout the whole story and made up the entire tale.
This author has continuously used precise details and solid imagery to help the reader
associate feelings with the narrator in the story. Johnson also did not connect his details so the
reader could infer what the narrator was thinking and could also feel the character’s confusion
and craziness. Many writers do use concrete detail and imagery in their stories to help readers
‘feel’, and so does Denis Johnson. But Johnson does not connect his details together in the
creative essay “Car Crash While Hitchhiking.” This brings a whole different dimension to the
story and the narrator in the story because we as reader’s can not only ‘feel’ the story through
imagery, but also we can feel the character’s confusion through the lack of connection.
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Works Cited
Burroway, Janet. Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft. New York: Penguin Academics,
2003.
Johnson, Denis. “Car Crash While Hitchhiking.” Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft.
Ed. Janet Burroway. New York: Penguin Academics, 2003. 26-31.